1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates to the field of carpet removal. More specifically, the invention relates to a carpet stripping device that uses a lower power motor to rotate a carpet spool and, thereby, strip the carpet from the floor.
2. Related Art
Carpet is often adhered to a floor using an relatively strong adhesive. When the carpet wears, it must be removed and replaced. However, removing the carpet glued to the floor can be quite difficult. Typically, the carpet is removed by hand by simply pulling the edges of the carpet, ripping the carpet from the floor. Pulling the carpet from the floor can require a number of workers, pulling in unison to remove the carpet. The adhesive is sometimes strong enough that pieces of the concrete floor is ripped up with the adhesive and the carpet during the carpet removal. Thus, removing the carpet in this manner is labor intensive, costly, and time consuming.
A number of devices have been developed to remove carpet glued to a floor. Most of these devices use some sort of pulling device wherein one end is clamped to the edge of the carpet and the opposite end of the device is anchored. A motor then pulls the first end of the carpet toward the anchored second end ripping the carpet from the floor. Typically, these devices do not provide a means for neatly cutting the carpet to a width that can be easily handled.
Another prior effort uses a blade that scrapes below the carpet while an elevated, motorized spool rolls the carpet thereon. Although this device provides a way to neatly cut the carpet into strips, the device appears to be relatively complicated and, thus, relatively costly.
Thus, despite the use of the prior art features, there remains a need for a relatively inexpensive carpet stripping device that is easy to use and reduces or eliminates the manual labor associated with carpet stripping.